Friday, February 25, 2011

FFwD - Short Ribs in Red Wine and Port

French Friday with Dorie this week required us to make the most scrumptious beef short ribs in red wine and port. My photo at the top of this post, with the ribs on a bed of mash and pancetta green beans on the side, doesn't do it justice. It was devine.

The recipe calls for 9lb (4kg) beef short ribs. Hmm, for one person, no can do. My butcher has sold me the wrong cut, and these 4 pieces cost me $16:

I can guarantee you that there was no more than a kilo there. However, when I went to Queen Vic markets a week later, I saw what looked like the right cut (sold as spare ribs) for ~$10/kilo. Oh well, no matter, I had beef from the rib area and that would do.

Here are all the chopped up veges:

You may ask - what hapened to the veges - I can't see them in the photo? Well, that is a good question - all the veges are used merely to flavour the sauce, and are strained out of the end product.

The sauce involves a whole bottle (750ml) of red wine, so I bought a $5.50 rough red. It also uses a cup and a half of port. However, the gelatinous meat, slow cooked with the alcohol and the veges, ends up like this:

You can see why Dorie's book only has a photo of the raw ingredients with a sliver of meat on the side. This photo doesn't look attractive, but believe me, the rich, rich sauce created tastes out of this world with the melt-off-the-bone meat on a bed of mash. Yes, this dish was way too pricey to be on a regular rotation in my house, but boy it tasted good.

To see what the other FFwD members thought of this dish, visit this week's LYL section at the FFwD website.

The sauce was wonderful and the meat was so tender. It looks like your meal didn't suffer from the cut of meat you used. I so liked the braising liquid that I'm going to try it with a less fatty (and less expensive) cut of meat some time.